‘Escape’ Transcending Bounds – A yearning for something beyond the ordinary

M. Anne Smith is a textile and fabric artist living in Guelph. She has always enjoyed art and, during her 31-year teaching career with the Upper Grand District School Board, took courses in painting, quilting, macrame and embroidery among other creative arts. By the time she retired, her focus had evolved into art quilting, needle felting, and mixed media. Over the years, Anne has taken inspiration from classes led by many talented artists, including Lorraine Roy, Helen Hughes, Marilyn Clark, Maggie Vanderweit and Elaine Quehl and from working with her fibre arts group. She augments this with her own photography and her extensive collection of books. Over the years, Anne has participated in the Hills of Erin Studio Tour, the Art Walk in Fergus and Art in the Street in Guelph. Her work has been exhibited throughout the county, including the former Burdette Gallery, Café Creperie, the Turn of Fate Studio, the Rockwood and Puslinch Libraries, the former Teak Barn Décor Store in Ospringe, the ECFTA and the Wellington Museum. “I love watching the beautiful sky colours as the sun rises and sets, particularly over the water. It is my happy place and always soothes my soul. In an extension of this feeling, creating my art, especially experimenting with colour and texture to create representations of sunsets, gives me the same sense of peace and escape.”

Diane Kennedy Cruttenden has been practicing the art of tapestry weaving and experimenting with  fibre art since 1970. At that time Dianne moved from her home in Detroit, Michigan to attend the brand new Sheridan College School of Design in Lorne Park, Ontario, at the time a tiny campus of 150 like-minded ‘ hippies’ who threw themselves into creating pottery, blown glass, jewelry, furniture design, and printed and woven fibre art. Upon entering the weaving studio, for Dianne  it was love at first sight.  Since then, she has honed her skills, often carding, dyeing, and spinning her own yarn. While at Sheridan College she took a leave of absence to work with Robert Kidd, a renowned weaver in Michigan. Dianne’s work first appeared  in a tapestry exhibition in 1972, held at the Detroit Institute of Art and has been exhibited and collected internationally since then.

Dianne and her husband owned and operated three Fine Craft Galleries in Niagara-on-the- Lake, Port Dalhousie and Manitoulin Island, which featured Dianne’s wearable art and tapestry. Dianne loves to share her passion for the art of weaving; she initially started teaching when asked by the Canadian Arctic Producers to open a workshop in  Kinngait, Nunavut (Cape Dorset) in 1973 and has gone on to teach in Elliot Lake, Manitoulin Island, and Southern Ontario. Eventually moving to Fergus in 2016, Dianne has been on the Elora- Fergus Studio Tour for 8 years and joined the Octarine Women Artists’ Collective in 2019. She has shown her work and won awards in The Insights Juried Exhibition of Fine Arts and Pelham Art Festival.

 “My current work for this exhibition ”Escape: Transcending Bounds” explores the ongoing pursuit of freedom and the joy of expressing that freedom through transcending the bounds of traditional weaving techniques and the use of colour and texture in fibre.”

Gail Brown has always been inspired by natural landscapes, both local or from her many travels. She grew up on a fruit and vegetable farm with plenty of opportunities to explore woods, orchards and anything the outdoors had to offer, interests which feature strongly in all of her artwork. Gail came to art late in life and considers it a never-ending journey of creative development. She has been working mainly in soft pastels for the past 6 years, and is a member of the Octarines, the Stone Gable Painters, the Wednesday Painters and the Elora Fergus Studio Tour.

“For me personally, the quiet contemplation of my surroundings, the inspiration these visions provide, the emotional excitement created by light, shadow and colour – the ability to transfer all of this to my paintings – this creativity offers an amazing escape from the stresses of daily life. These sanctuaries help to create moments of hope, peace and joy.

Nancy Farrell is a Guelph, Ontario, visual artist who creates artworks in acrylic, mixed media and found materials. Her colourful and free-wheeling abstracts and non-objective paintings are inspired by lines, shapes and colours found in the landscape. Nancy has been a respected artist for decades, with work in countless collections and an extensive exhibition record. 

“Nature is the impetus for my creative process. For me, the process of art-making has at its core a contemplative, spiritual understanding of the natural world. My response is to select, distill, convert and arrange textures, shapes, marks and colours that emerge primarily from a feeling or a recollection of landscape. In approaching my paintings I am asking the viewer to slow down and enter into my space. In the process I ask them to become equally aware of their own personal space and individual response to the painting. As Mark Rothko states, “A painting is not about an experience, it IS an experience”. My intent is for the viewer to be able to reflect on the vitality of my paintings as a catalyst for personal reflection.

Judy French graduated from the University of Guelph with an Honours B.Sc. (Agr.) and is now an award winning artist based in Elora.  She enjoys sharing this demanding profession with her husband and fellow artist, Dick Marvin.  Judy works in water-based media and paints in oil outside, “en plein air”, often finishing the plein air pieces in her studio.  She is passionate about landscapes, both urban and rural. Judy has been a member of the Elora Fergus Studio Tour since 2015 and has participated in many solo and group shows.  She has been an “Octarine” since 2018. “Escape.  What a wonderful concept.  The act of painting in itself is an escape.  It takes me deep inside my head where there is only the colour and texture of the paint and the sound of the brush.  There are no natural or human confrontations and stresses;  troubles evaporate with the soft swish, swish of my brush.  In another world, I paint.”

Carol Hughes paints landscapes and floral subjects in watercolour, as a celebration of the natural beauty of her surroundings.  Her impressionistic views of the Niagara Escarpment and her travels are full of joyous colour.  She graduated from the University of Guelph with a B.A. in English, and several fine arts and theatre credits.  Later she earned certificates in French language from the University of Stockholm in Aix-en-Provence, and Environmental Horticulture from Sheridan College.  She began painting in watercolour in 2003, and has developed her skills in the medium through courses at Haliburton School of Art and Design and workshops with many prominent artists. Carol is a founding member of the Octarine Women Artists’ Collective, and has exhibited her work extensively throughout Southern Ontario, winning several awards in juried competitions.

“My main escapes are my art making, and connecting to nature.  I combine the two in the warmer weather by plein air painting and sketching as often as possible.  I also find great peace in gardening and hiking, and my escapist reading is fantasy and science fiction.  All these themes are reflected in my work in this exhibition. The subjects I feel compelled to paint are almost always about the beauty revealed by the way the light falls on them.  I strive to capture a moment that may not come again.”

Kim Johnston is a visual artist who lives and works at Belwood Lake and in Kitchener. She enjoys working in oils, pastels, watercolours, coloured pencils, graphite and occasionally acrylics or other media, drawing inspiration from her love of nature, gardening and gourmet cooking. Kim began formal oil painting instructions at the age of 16 with various instructors over the years, including Tom Caley, Jack Reid, Roger Witmer, Barry McCarthy, and in the University of Waterloo’s Fine Arts Program with Tony Urquhart.  Kim teaches classes and participates in numerous art shows and fairs throughout Ontario. She continues to grow as an artist by attending workshops and teaching art from a variety of perspectives. Kim’s art can be found from coast to coast in Canada, the US and Holland.

“The play of light and shadow can make an ordinary thing unexpectedly extraordinary. I strive to capture those ethereal moments of beauty in my art, so that it will grace my life and the lives of others.”

Leslie Miles is a full time artist, primarily a ‘plein air’, landscape painter who works in dry pastel when on location.  She uses some of these pastel paintings as sketches that inspire larger scale pieces which are done in the studio using silk screen paint and acrylic media.  Leslie is a graduate of Ryerson, (Fashion Design, 1976), St Martin’s School of Art, London, England, (Fashion Design and Illustration, 1977) and the University of Guelph (Honours Fine Art, 1985). She has developed a strong sense of design and art from these combined studies.  Lesley has been an instructor of Drawing and Painting for the City of Guelph (1981- 2017), and has been a member of the Guelph Studio Tour since 2002 and the Octarine Women Artist’s Collective for 7 years. She works from her studio in the country between Fergus and Guelph.  

 “Develop your senses – especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.” – Leonardo da Vinci. When I am painting the landscape ‘en plein air’ it takes my complete focus to make sense of what I see. I have found that drawing is a powerful tool to learn and understand the natural world.  Looking up into a tree, or watching a wave crash onto an Atlantic shoreline reminds me of the power of nature and my small part in a larger scheme.  Spending time in a forest makes me feel better and helps balance my perspective.   It reminds me of our need to respect our natural world, so that we continue to have a place to escape to and enjoy.  For this reason, trees have become my focus for this show. I hope my paintings can inspire a sense of appreciation for these wonderful creations that populate our planet and give perhaps others, a brief escape. 

Gail Root is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where she received an honours Fine Art Degree.  She has spent her working years as an arts educator in the school system, and since her retirement, has continued to expand her own skills through workshops, enhancing her personal art education while continuing to teach other adults through workshops.  Gail has been involved in several group and solo shows throughout southern Ontario.  She is the founder of the Octarine Women Artists’ Collective (OWAC). This is where her artistic focus has been for the past 10 years.  Since 1973, Gail has resided in Rockwood, Ontario.

“Submerging myself into my painting for this exhibit has brought me back to many experiences that I have enjoyed and learned from, an escape, if you will to memories past and the anticipation of future escapes.  May your viewing experience activate some of the same.”